A War Too Far

by David Lee Corley

  “And we will,” said Dewey. “To the last.”

  “To the last,” said Giap.

  “There may be another way,” said Granier. “Mr. Van, how far is it to the closest Japanese airfield?”

  “I don’t know,” said Giap, then turned to Spitting Woman and spoke to her in her tribal language. “She says about thirty-two miles to the Southwest.”

  “A small force could reach it before tomorrow morning.”

  “For what purpose?” said Dewey.

  “Kill everyone.”

  “You don’t even know if that plane came from that airbase.”

  “Why wouldn’t it? It’s a short range reconnaissance plane.”

  “Even if it did, when the pilot reports back his findings, the base commander is sure to notify the army and they’ll send a battalion to wipe us out.”

  “Will he?”

  “Will he what?”

  “Will the Air Force commander notify the Army commander? What if the pilot wasn’t positive what he saw?”

  “That’s a big ‘if’.”

  “Okay, but why would an Air Force commander share that kind of information. Why wouldn’t he keep it to himself? This is a big deal, if you think about it. The commander that destroys the Viet Minh camp is sure to receive a big promotion. Why not just bomb us?”

  “What does it matter? The results are the same. The Viet Minh are wiped out.”

  “Not if we reach them first. It’s late afternoon. They probably won’t attempt a night attack. Too hard to identify targets. That means first thing in the morning is the earliest they would attempt an aerial assault. If we could reach the airbase before the morning, we could stop the attack.”

  “That’s a lot of ‘ifs’, Buck,” said Dewey.

  “Look. Even if I’m wrong, attacking the Japanese will throw them off guard. It may buy us some time. You can prepare better for the attack or try to move the camp and cover your tracks.”

  “I admit… it’s a bold plan, and the Japanese won’t be expecting it. How many men will you need?”

  “Six men and one woman to show us the way,” said Granier. “I’d like Davis to go with us. We’ll need explosives for the planes if we reach the field in time.”

  “Are you sure seven will be enough?”

  “No. But we need to travel fast if we are going to reach the airbase by dawn. Seven seems like a manageable number.”

  “Alright. I agree.”

  “Mr. Van, I will need your best runners.”

  Spitting Woman led the way as the sabotage team jogged through the forest. It was a marathon, not a sprint. They didn’t stop while there was sunlight. It would be more difficult at night. They wanted to get as far as possible while they could still see the forest floor. All eyes searched for tripwires as they traveled. They stayed off the trails even when they found them.

  The closer the team moved toward the Japanese bases, the more dangerous it became. The Japanese had patrols searching for anything amiss around their bases. They were more concerned with a Chinese invasion than a Viet Minh attack. The Japanese commanders still saw the Viet Minh as a rabble, not worthy of their concern.

  When a Japanese patrol was spotted, the sabotage team dove into the ferns and bushes. They waited until the patrol passed. They did not want to make contact. They did not want to fight. Not now. Not yet. The brief rest did them good and when they resumed, they were able to pick up their pace. Their leg muscles burned. They would periodically raise their hands to let the blood flow back toward their lungs and heart. Anything to keep going.

  After the sun set, one of the Viet Minh tripped over an exposed root and injured his ankle badly. Granier examined it quickly and determined that he wouldn’t be able to keep up. They had no choice but to leave him to find his own way back to the Viet Minh camp or die trying. The injured man understood and wished them luck. One of the Viet Minh promised to come back and find him if he could. It was a lie to a dead man. You never go back the way you came after an attack. It was a sure way to get ambushed. There was little doubt the Japanese would find him and take their revenge. The team kept going.

  As the surrounding landscape lightened, Granier knew dawn was approaching. They weren’t there yet. He was pushing the team as hard as he dared. They would still need to fight once they got to the airfield. Everyone was exhausted, including himself. They had been jogging for over twelve hours with few breaks. It was sheer willpower that kept them going. He was proud of his little team of saboteurs. They had heart. They were giving all to protect their pack – the Viet Minh camp.

  As far as he could tell, they had avoided detection. That was a miracle in itself because of the number of Japanese patrols and outposts they had encountered. Success was a longshot and everyone on the team knew it. They needed to be lucky.

  Granier heard the sound of a truck engine in the distance. The team crested the hill they were climbing and saw the Japanese airbase below.

  A fuel truck was driving back to a maintenance building. There were six Zeros parked along the runway, already armed. The two bombs and the two 7.7mm machineguns that each plane carried would devastate the Viet Minh, especially those not fast enough to seek cover – the old, the young, the wounded and the sick. The Zeros looked ready for takeoff.

  There was little time to deploy the team if they were going to stop the air attack. Granier was unsure if it was just an air attack or if the Japanese fighters were providing a pre-emptive strike for a ground assault. He considered the preparation required for a ground assault and the distance a large force would need to travel to reach the Viet Minh camp. It seemed like there hadn’t been enough time, but he couldn’t be sure. It was always possible that the Japanese had forces in the area. There was nothing Granier and his team could do about a ground force at the moment. Their mission was to prevent the air strike. There were two options – destroy the planes or kill the pilots. They would try to do both. A third requirement was to destroy the airbase communications so they could not inform others of their discovery of the Viet Minh camp. It might have already been too late for that, but the team had to try, nonetheless.

  The team was positioned behind the runway, where the command post and maintenance buildings gave them good cover. There were Japanese guards patrolling the entire compound and heavy machinegun positions on both sides of the airfield used for both air and ground defense.

  The team Granier had chosen was made up of two snipers and two sappers. One of the sappers had been left behind in the forest with an injured ankle. Spitting Woman had taken his pack of explosives. She would need to take his place to carry the pack for Davis and the other sapper to place the explosives. There wasn’t much time for instructions or a pep talk, everyone knew what they had to do. Granier designated a rendezvous point and they split up, keeping low and out of sight.

  Davis placed the first explosive package at the base of the command post, tying a bundle of TNT to the wooden post used as a foundation. He would have preferred to place an explosive on all four corners to completely destroy the building and ensure those inside were killed, but there wasn’t enough time and he didn’t have enough explosives to be overly efficient. The fuse was a five-minute pencil detonator which he crimped with a pair of pliers to activate. He would use pencil detonators with shorter fuses for the other explosives he would plant. This would allow the devices to detonate close together. But it wasn’t an exact measurement. There was variance built into the system.

  At the same time, the Viet Minh sapper placed another explosive package by the fuel tank near the maintenance building. He was a veteran fighter, but this was his first time using explosives in combat. He was nervous and didn’t want to let his instructor down. He too crimped a pencil detonator as Davis had shown him during training, then ran, keeping low, to the next target – a communications hut with a radio antenna sticking up from the end on a pole.

  It was dawn and the outline of the surrounding mountains was cle
ar. The darkness no longer masked the movements of the team. Granier deployed his two snipers in the forest near the machinegun positions. Although he hadn’t had time to train them in concealment, the Viet Minh snipers were good shots and reliable. He believed that if they could take out the heavy machinegun crews, the sabotage team would stand a much better chance of completing its mission and surviving.

  He decided to climb the tallest tree he could find that overlooked the airfield. He slung his rifle on his back and used a doubled-over piece of rope to shimmy up the tree’s trunk, like a logger. He reached the branches and continue upward until he was thirty feet off the ground. He straddled a branch and looked out. He had a clear line of sight over most of the airfield. In the distance sat the runway and the six Zeros. He hoped to kill any pilots before they reached their planes. He unslung his rifle and adjusted his legs and elbows until he felt stable. Chambering a round, he surveyed the area with his scope. He studied the Japanese patrols around the perimeter of the airfield and the machinegun positions. He found each of his team members and checked on their progress.

  Davis was planting an explosive device on what looked like the officer’s quarters. He wondered if the pilots were still in their quarters or in the command post being briefed by their commander. He imagined the later and decided that is where he would focus his attention once the first explosion went off. That was the team’s cue to begin the attack – the first explosion.

  Granier could feel his legs throbbing from the night’s journey. If they cramped, he would be in trouble. He would not be able to hang on. It was a long drop to the forest floor. But what worried him even more were the muscle tremors. Even the slightest tremor could throw his aim off. Water will help, he thought. He took his canteen from his belt, opened it, drank two swallows and put it back.

  It was calm, even peaceful, as he waited. He had no real idea when the first explosion would occur. Davis didn’t like mechanical timers. He preferred a chemical reaction to ignite his detonators. Mechanisms could malfunction or even jam. Chemicals were more reliable. The problem was that he couldn’t set everything to go off at the same time with pencil detonators. It was a tradeoff – reliability against timing. Davis chose reliability. It didn’t make sense to Granier, but he wasn’t an explosives expert and had to defer to Davis. Davis and Spitting Woman were still planting devices, so Granier thought it must not be time yet. All he could do was wait.

  He used the time to see how the other team members were doing. His snipers were in place and ready, each aiming at a machinegunner as they had been taught – gunner, feeder, loader – that was the order of execution. Execution, he thought. It sounds criminal. Assassination’s not much better. It don’t matter. I do my job. Dead is dead. The Viet Minh sapper had placed his last device and was moving to his firing position near the edge of the forest. Good, thought Granier. Just like an orchestra – everybody up and ready to begin. He moved his scope over to find Davis. He found him next to a Showa transportation plane rigging an explosive charge on its front landing gear. Spitting Woman wasn’t beside him. A slight panic tweaked his nervous system. Where is she? He looked around the area and spotted a guard moving toward the area. “Shit,” said Granier to himself. “Where the hell are you?”

  He kept looking through his scope, searching for Spitting Woman, moving from place to place. He found her squatting next to a supply truck. “Oh, thank, God,” said Granier, relieved.

  Spitting Woman was facing Davis and not keeping watch on the area behind her. Granier moved his scope back to where the guard was patrolling. He was gone. “Fuck,” he said, moving his scope around, searching for the soldier.

  He found him just a few feet from the back of the supply truck, he hadn’t seen Spitting Woman yet, but it was just a matter of time. Granier put his scope’s sight on the Japanese guard’s left temple. Everything seemed to be going so well and now it was falling apart. If he fired and killed the guard, it would warn the Japanese, including the pilots. They might not get caught in the explosion. But Granier didn’t have a choice. It wasn’t even a matter of choosing between Spitting Woman and the mission. The guard’s rifle shot would have the same effect of warning the other Japanese soldiers. Granier would take the first shot if it came to it. His line of sight was clear. He wouldn’t miss.

  The guard approached the end of the truck and stopped. He took out a cigarette and lit it. “Come on, girl. Smell the smoke,” said Granier watching through his scope.

  Davis finished planting the device on the nose gear of the plane and glanced at his watch. He was out of time. He motioned to Spitting Woman to follow him as they moved toward their firing position, a safe distance from the explosions. Spitting Woman moved, her feet crunched against the gravel. The guard heard the noise, unslung his rifle, and moved around the truck. He saw her. He had only raised his rifle two inches before Granier put a bullet through his head and he fell to the ground.

  The Japanese were alerted, and the rest of the saboteur team opened fire. The machinegunners both went down with bullets through their skulls.

  Granier was no longer concerned with Davis and Spitting Woman. They could take care of themselves now that the assault had begun. Instead, he swung his scope around to where he thought the pilots would appear – the doorway of the command post. He was right. The commander and the pilots ran out. The commander ordered them to their planes and barked orders to the other soldiers. Granier put a bullet in his head. He fell dead. The pilots started running for their planes. The building exploded from Davis’ first device. Piece of wood flew in all directions. One of the pilots was caught in the ball of flame and his uniform ignited. Another pilot screamed in shock as he looked down. A two-foot-long wooden shard had speared him in the side. “Two down,” said Granier sighting a third, pulling the trigger, and watching him fall. “Three.”

  The surviving pilots regained their footing and ran toward their planes, yelling for the ground crews to start their engines.

  The crew members ran to each plane and fired up their engines. As the first pilot approached the tail of the first plane, Granier put him face down in the dirt with a bullet to the back of his head. “Four.”

  Granier swung over to the last two pilots. He sighted the first one to reach his plane. The pilot climbed onto the wing and slipped just as Granier fired. The bullet zinged over his head and ricocheted off the rotating propeller. “Shit,” said Granier, again taking aim.

  The second bullet didn’t miss. The front of the pilot’s uniform exploded in red as the bullet traveled through his body and exited on the left side of his chest. He fell to the wing and tumbled to the ground.

  Granier swung his rifle around searching for the final pilot. He found him with one foot already in the cockpit. He centered his sight on his back and fired just as the pilot dropped into his seat. The bullet smashed through the front windshield missing the pilot’s shoulder by an inch. It was a rushed shot. Granier realigned his sight to fire through the cockpit and hit the back of the pilot’s head, but the plane’s canopy support blocked his shot. “God, damn it,” said Granier.

  He fired anyway, hoping it would go through the windshield and the support. The bullet made it through the back of the windshield but was stopped by the metal support. The plane started to move. “No. No. No,” said Granier slinging his rifle onto his back, climbing down the tree, jumping the last ten feet, landing, falling forward to not damage his weapon. He rose to his feet and ran toward the runway.

  Spitting Woman saw Granier break from the cover of the trees. She looked around and saw two Japanese soldiers directly in Granier’s path, bringing their rifles around to shoot him. She took aim and fired. The bullet hit one of the soldiers in the shoulder and sent him to the ground. But Granier was almost upon them. There wasn’t any time. She took aim at the second and fired again. She missed.

  The Japanese soldier fired at Granier, who was running straight at him like a charging bull. The bullet hit Granier on the side of the
neck and sliced through his flesh. Blood ran down the side of his neck, but it didn’t stop him. He used his sniper rifle barrel to knock the soldier’s rifle aside, then hit the soldier in the head with the butt of his rifle as he ran passed. The soldier fell, more surprised by the move than the glancing blow of the rifle butt. He quickly regained his senses and aimed at Granier’s back as he ran down the side of the runway. The soldier squeezed the trigger, but his head exploded before his weapon fired.

  Spitting Woman didn’t miss the second time. Satisfied Granier was out of danger for the moment; she looked for another target.

  One of the Viet Minh snipers was on his last member of the machinegun crew when the loader swung the machinegun around and fired a burst. It was a wild shot, but the stream of bullets took off the sniper’s head. The loader fired the machinegun at Spitting Woman and Davis until it jammed. He tried to clear it when Davis rose up from behind his covered position and shot him. He slumped over the machinegun’s hot barrel.

  Another Japanese soldier, seeing what happened, aimed and shot Davis in the back. Davis went down, wounded, out of the fight. In the process of reloading his rifle, the sapper saw his instructor hit. Without waiting to reload, he sprang from his hidden firing position, ran out of the trees. The Japanese soldier saw the sapper advancing and swung his weapon around. It was too late. The sapper reached him before he could fire and hit him in the eye with the tip of his rifle barrel. The soldier screamed in pain. The sapper silenced him with his rifle’s butt.

  Spitting Woman ran to Davis and tended to his back wound. It was painful and bleeding but not fatal. One of Davis’ ribs had stopped the bullet from piercing his lungs. The rib was broken, and it was hard for him to breath, but he would live. She put pressure on the wound and wrapped a bandage around him to stop the bleeding as Hoagland had taught her. She was not gentle, but she was fast. As soon as she thought he was okay, she picked her rifle back up and rejoined the fight.